Lok Sabha Elections 2024 phase 1: High-profile constituencies, candidates

The Coimbatore LS seat in Tamil Nadu will witness a high-stakes battle, with State BJP president K Annamalai facing DMK leader Ganapathy P Rajkumar and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam's (AIADMK) Singai Ramachandran. 

Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, will be eyeing a third straight victory from Maharashtra's Nagpur parliamentary seat. The seat will witness the contest between senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari and Congress candidate Vikas Thakre.

Jitin Prasada, who quit Congress in 2021, is one of the prominent faces of the first phase of the Lok Sabha elections as he replaced two-time MP from Pilibhit, Varun Gandhi. 

Jitan Ram Manjhi is contesting from the Gaya seat, which has the highest number of 14 candidates contesting the elections this time. In the 2024 election, the BJP has left the Gaya (reserved) seat for its ally, the Hindustani Awam Morcha-Secular (HAM-S). 

In MP's Chhindwara, the BJP is leaving no stone unturned to snatch the lone seat won by the Congress in the 2019 elections. Nakul Nath, son of former CM Kamal Nath, is fighting again from the Chhindwara seat against BJP candidate Vivek Bunty Sahu, who had lost to Kamal Nath in the last two assembly polls.

The Jorhat seat in Assam will decide if the Congress' deputy leader in Lok Sabha, Gaurav Gogoi, can make it to the elected house this time too. The constituency has been seen as a stronghold of the BJP. 

Reentering politics, veteran politician Tamilisai Soundararajan resigned as governor of Telangana. Her BJP candidature in Chennai South is a testament to her dedication to public service.

Dayanidhi Maran, who represents Chennai Central, aims to keep the DMK, which is now in power, firmly in control of the district. 

Jitendra Singh, a multi-portfolio minister and two-term MP from Jammu and Kashmir, is preparing for a rematch in the Udhampur constituency. He defeated Ghulam Nabi Azad, the former CM of Jammu and Kashmir, in 2014, and he did it again in 2019, this time with a larger margin of victory over Vikramaditya Singh of the Congress.

Representing the Congress-SP coalition, Imran Masood has emerged as a leading candidate in Saharanpur, an electoral battlefield. 

Inputs from ANI